Roger Stone's trial will start Nov. 5, and the judge presiding over the case said Thursday that she expects it to last two weeks.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, in setting the trial date, said she didn't wish to waste time talking about the re-release of a book Stone published in 2017, a move that could have been considered a violation of his partial gag order. The judge said she was taking it "under advisement."
Stone, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, was arrested by the FBI in January. He faces seven charges arising from the special counsel's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, including five counts of making false statements, one count of obstruction and one count of witness tampering. Stone has denied all charges.
Stone, who appeared to court Thursday wearing thick-rimmed round glasses, a gray double-breasted suit, a navy tie and a pocket square, is due back for another status hearing on April 30.
In February Jackson banned Stone from speaking publicly about the case after he posted a picture on Instagram of the judge with crosshairs next to her head.
She later asked Stone's attorneys why, given the gag order, they waited to mention the republication of his book, which was originally titled "The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution.”
The book is now titled "The Myth of Russian Collusion” and it was published anew with what the cover describes as "an explosive new introduction" by Stone.
"He was aware at the time the order was issued that there was a publication,” Jackson said Thursday. “They tried to get on top of the issue thereafter.”
Stone's attorneys had argued that he should be allowed to publish the new iteration of the book because it was written before his arrest. They also said that "not a single word" of the book was written after the gag order was imposed.
In the new introduction to the book, Stone says, "I now find myself on Crooked Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's hit list ... because the Deep State liberals want to silence me and pressure me to testify against my good friend." It was published online two days before the gag order, according to Amazon.com and Google Books.
